Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image

"Nixon's Shadow" explores how an image-obsessed president transformed the way we think about politics and polticians. To his conservative supporters in 1940s California, Nixon was a populist everyman; to intellectuals of the 1950s, he was "Tricky Dick"; to 1960s radicals, a shadowy conspirator; to the Washington press corps, a pioneering spin doctor; to loyal Middle Americans, a victim of liberal hatred; to recent historians, an unlikely liberal. This book rediscovers these competing images of the protean Nixon, showing how each was created and disseminated in American culture and how Nixon's tinkering with his own image often backfired. More than what Nixon did, this it reveals what Nixon meant.